ICS: A list of factors that contribute to its success

[Roxlimn]

Bandobras Took:

Many tile improvements remain better than the city tile itself, if the right buildings and improvements were in place. Mints, Seaports, Monasteries boost tile output by significant amounts since they are base tile improvements.

Let me guess - I am, once again, the only guy who ever actually builds these things.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Let me guess - I am, once again, the only guy who ever actually builds these things.

I build Mints all the time. University spam gets expensive.

Seaports and Monasteries, not so much. Either would be fantastic under the right circumstances.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I mean you could just make the forge give +1 hammers for all mines and lumber mills..... (for hills and forests)
or change the granary so that it gives only +1 food and an additional +1 food for every improved food resource tile..... this would make placing cities near better tiles more important...and it makes tundra city spam much less productive.

Hey, I reckon this is a great idea. You mind if I pass this on to Thallassicus for the next version of his "Balance Mod"?

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

sulla is just bitter that he wasn't consulted on the game. Does it have many flaws? yes, but many of us here still like it and have hope that it will get better in the future, while you just complain a lot. Go play civ iv.

What a load of total bunkum. Seriously, if you don't have a *proper* argument, then don't even bother wasting space with a reply!

 

[Bandobras Took]

Bandobras Took:

Many tile improvements remain better than the city tile itself, if the right buildings and improvements were in place. Mints, Seaports, Monasteries boost tile output by significant amounts since they are base tile improvements.

Let me guess - I am, once again, the only guy who ever actually builds these things.

No, I build them, too. I'm just saying that the general tile output level in Civ 5 is nowhere near Civ 4's level. If city tiles are generally very good tiles, it naturally leads to wanting more of them. If workable tiles are much better than city tiles (again I point to Civ 4, where a city tile could essentially be considered as a great big -gold tile), it does encourage a balanced approach between city development and city founding.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I build Mints all the time. University spam gets expensive.

Seaports and Monasteries, not so much. Either would be fantastic under the right circumstances.

For the Maintenance, Monasteries are one of the best culture buildings, since you get at least +5 from them.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

r_rolo1:
I frequently encounter this strange opinion that stopping ICS would be impossible and difficult. I don't get how this can be. We can always institute a hard cap on cities. That would stop ICS pretty darned cold.

Hard Caps are *never* a good solution to a problem IMHO. I don't necessarily want to see ICS *eliminated*-just made less of an effective game-play strategy!

 

[Roxlimn]

Aussie Lurker:

The point was that it wasn't impossible - just hard to do without also affecting other incidental things in the game. The point wasn't to make a workable suggestion, but to point out that it wasn't impossible, and to hint at why and how ICS in Civ-style games have always had imperfect solutions.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Aussie Lurker:

The point was that it wasn't impossible - just hard to do without also affecting other incidental things in the game. The point wasn't to make a workable suggestion, but to point out that it wasn't impossible, and to hint at why and how ICS in Civ-style games have always had imperfect solutions.

Apologies for the misunderstanding Roxlimn. I should have read the rest of your posts before jumping to the above conclusion .

Aussie.

 

[fed1943]

If I see it right the true question is not about number of cities, but overlap.

To put out the ICS looks easy: just impose a minimum of tiles distance between each city's central tile; four tiles in the middle obviously enough, perhaps just three would do.

But IMO the true question can't be solved by a pro or against ICS contest, instead to make several distint aproaches good choices, and not one good choice versus several mistakes.

 

[Sararastro]

Only a big city strategy needs some quite expensive cultural buildings for city expansion, so
later cultural buildings should give a happiness bonus.
Further there could be buildings, which produce sciene, gold etc. per tile of city influence.

 

[Sararastro]

The formula for the amount of food necessary for city growth is: food=15+6*(p-1)+(p-1)^1.8
p..population
If you change the city growth exponent, which is listed in GlobalDefines, just from 1.8 to 1.6,
the amount of food used to expand a city from 19p to 20p goes down from 329 to 240.